


Still Here

by bluemoodblue



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Family Feels, Feelings, Food Issues, Gen, Recovery, Trauma, a little bit of blupjeans and taakitz, but mostly about the siblings, talking about feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 09:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11825940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemoodblue/pseuds/bluemoodblue
Summary: Happily-ever-after is harder to find in the real world than it is in stories. Lup thinks she and Taako have earned their happy endings, and she'll make sure that Taako believes that, too.(After everything, all they really need for a happy ending is each other.)





	Still Here

**Author's Note:**

> Oh look, it's another story where Taako and Lup attempt to talk about feelings! Is this definitely the way it would go down? Maybe not, but I like to think it's a possibility. It also got much longer than I intended (like, a lot longer...) but I hope you enjoy; I enjoyed writing it!

When Lup was young, she liked fairy tales.  Taako too, and they agreed that the best ones were the stories that had a clever protagonist who outsmarted the villain through their wits, even though they were smaller or weaker.  Those characters reminded her of her and her brother - if the people in the stories could make it, then so could Taako and Lup.  When they ran out of stories to tell each other, they made up new ones.

Lup was more interested in the idea of the happy ending part, after everything.  When she was little, she’d always thought that the the happily-ever-after part was too final; she wanted to think that there would be more adventures and that the story just didn’t have time to cover a whole lifetime of excitement and clever tricks.  And Lup didn’t expect her life to settle into permanent complacency - there was still too much she wanted to do and see - but she thought she understood the appeal in a guaranteed sort of happiness.  There was an unwritten contract, in every story, that when the hero won, their happiness is promised.  It was an abstract concept, over-simplified and at best unlikely, but she wanted that promise of happiness.

The Hunger was no longer looming, everyone had lived (almost) and everyone was fine (pretty much).  Lup had a new body that had been customized to specifications, Magnus, Fisher, and Junior had a full week of bonding time, Lucretia was… sort of working on repairing some serious damage in all of her relationships; it was going to take a while.  Davenport was starting to get ahold of the stutter and teaching a few interested bureau employees how to operate the Starblaster.  Merle introduced all of them to his kids.  Barry smiled like some kind of damn (adorable) fool nearly all the time.

Everything was all set for the happy ending.  Almost.  Pretty much.

Except for a few loose ends, like the fact that Taako wouldn’t stop looking at her like that.

It was always when he thought she wouldn’t notice (and that was hilarious, that Taako really thought he was sneaky enough to get anything past her), usually from across the room.  It was like he was waiting for her to suddenly not be there, or like he was surprised to see her there at all.  It was a lost look, and it didn’t look right on Taako, who she’d always known as confident to the point of ridiculousness.  Even in his weaker moments, when his confidence was not as certain, he’d never looked at her with doubt.

She really didn’t like that.  Lup didn’t like the implication that Taako didn’t trust her to exist.

Lup blamed the memory loss.  And wasn’t that was one goddamn mess of a situation?  Even a mundane conversation could be derailed by some kind of misalignment of memory - trying to tell a story, one that they all should have known already, trailed off into a discussion of who had really done what.  Some days everyone was on the same page; the next day it was like picking through rubble for some semblance of the structure that had collapsed overnight.  What Lucretia hadn’t anticipated was that minds didn’t work like jigsaw puzzles, with pieces that could be removed and snapped back into place as it became convenient.  The gaps had all been filled in placeholders that were, at best, difficult to remove.  Usually, it became a balance of coexistence between real and fake memory.

It was… hard, to keep doing that with Taako - going over what was real, answering questions about moments he might have dreamed up and those that had actually happened.  (And Lup had different words she would use to describe it, but she didn’t want Taako to feel like she resented doing that for him.  There was enough doubt between them already.)  On good days they exchanged stories, reminding each other of details, and her brother looked so happy that everything felt right, everything felt okay, and happily-ever-after was so well within reach that it might’ve been hanging in the air around them.  On the worst days Lup was reminded of her time in the umbrella - Taako was so deep in his own head, trying to make sense of conflicting information, that she couldn’t reach him.

Most days fell somewhere in between.  The looks still showed up, and even when Taako was at his best it felt like he was holding back.  Lup trusted her instinct - she knew her brother’s tells.  Something wasn’t right, and it would be too easy for Taako to just  _ talk _ about it, of course.  She had to soften him up, she realized, and Taako was never more comfortable than he was in a kitchen with her, tossing ingredients between them and following a recipe together seamlessly and chaotically.  As soon as the idea occurred to her, she was making a shopping list of everything the kitchen needed to be adequately stocked (a much different list of requirements for the twins than for most other people).  They hadn’t cooked together in ages; they were well overdue for some quality sibling bonding time.  

Lup could have used magic to transport her purchases back to the base, or arranged some form of delivery, but she didn’t relish the thought of shopping alone and she wanted her idea to be a surprise.  Besides, it was just like old times, conning the nearest members of her family into manual labor for her benefit.  She didn’t have to do much convincing - all she really had to do was promise food and Barry and Magnus enthusiastically helped her haul the spoils back up to the moonbase.

Magnus in particular had been delighted by the implication of her cooking.  “So, uh, planning some kind of feast, Lup?  Any chance your very best friends in the whole multiverse might be invited?”

He’d gotten better at the puppy eyes since she’d been away, not that he’d really needed them.  “Magnus, my man, I am counting on you specifically to clear most of the food so the rest of us don’t have to do that bullshit-fantasy-tetris thing with the leftovers in the fridge.  You are vital to this mission.”

Magnus pumped an enthusiastic fist in the air, almost dropping three bags.  “ _ Yes! _  Finally, some quality food!  Don’t get me wrong, the cafeteria up here is good, but it’s not like I remembered any better and it’s a lot harder to eat okay food when you’ve had  _ the best _ , you know?”

Lup smirked at Magnus, wondering how many “cook your own damn bacon” arguments he and Taako had gotten into in more recent years.  There’d been a few on the Starblaster when Taako and Lup felt they weren’t getting the appropriate amount of appreciation for their efforts.  The culinary attempts of the rest of the crew had been… inspired.  And inedible.  “Taako didn’t cook for you guys much, huh?”

Magnus’s face flipped through a complicated array of emotions, which was not the reaction Lup had expected and probably should have set off a few mental alarms.  “Not… not so much, no.  Taako’s going to help you with this?”

She brushed off the uneasy look he gave her when she agreed.

~~~

The uneasy look on Taako’s face at the sight of the fully-stocked kitchen was a little harder to push past.

“Lup?  What’s all of this for?”

“Well… we haven’t gotten a lot of one-on-one time since I’ve been back, and this is kind of our thing.”  She gestured to the frankly enormous amount of supplies, and yeah, maybe she’d overdone it just a little, but she’d been excited, dammit, she hadn’t cooked anything in  _ forever _ .  “I’ve missed this!  I was thinking we could hang out this afternoon, cook a terrifying amount of food, and gorge ourselves on a selection of the multiverse’s finest dishes.  And then make Magnus finish the leftovers, of course.”

The tension in Taako’s shoulders leaked away with Lup’s obvious enthusiasm, and with it Lup’s apprehension at his reaction eased.  “Yeah, yeah sure.  Just like we used to, right?”

“ _ Fuck _ yes, Taako and Lup are  _ back! _  Pick a recipe, my dude, any recipe!”

The recipe that Taako settled on was surprisingly basic, but it soon became apparent that Taako was incredibly out of practice.  Lup had to keep abandoning her own tasks to correct Taako’s grip on a knife, or to remind him how to clean a certain type of shellfish, or to adjust the temperature of the burner slightly.

That alone would have been enough to put Lup on alert -  _ when Magnus said Taako didn’t cook he didn’t mean not ever, did he? _ \- but something was wrong.  Taako’s hands were shaky, which was a worrying prospect when he had a knife in hand, and while he seemed focused on what he was doing, he was also obviously somewhere else.  She tried to talk to him the way they always did while cooking, but his answers became slower and less coherent.  His gaze was only trained on what he was doing in the sense that his eyes were looking down and in the approximate direction of the food.  When Lup paused to watch him for a moment, maybe half an hour in and well past the point where he’d stopped talking to her entirely, it was clear that Taako wasn’t looking at anything at all.

Lup gently pried the knife away from Taako’s grip.  “Hey, Taako?  Can you hear me?”  He didn’t answer, or look up.  She put the utensil aside and lifted his chin to force him to look her in the eye.  “Taako?  I know you’re in there, bro, come on.   _ Taako _ .”

The volume snapped him out of whatever distraction he’d been stuck in.  “Lup?  What…”  He saw the mess of a kitchen behind her, clear evidence of a meal in progress.  “Fuck.”

Lup’s mouth was in a hard line, trying to suppress an outright frown.  Something sick was worming through her stomach - something was wrong.  Something was really goddamn wrong and she’d missed it somehow.  “Yeah, no fucking kidding.  What the hell, Taako?  What’s going on?”

She could see Taako’s mind working to come up with the best answer, and she would have protested on the spot if her own mind could move past the fact that her brother thought he had to manufacture an answer for her.  “I know, laugh it up, I really am that out of practice.”  He let out a self-depreciating laugh and it was convincing enough but painfully fake to her.  “Say what you like about the benefits of a campfire for smoking food, there are just not enough techniques in the world to improve the kind of supplies we were working with.  You think  _ Madame Director _ was really concerned about finding a quality cut of meat?  Not likely.  She hasn’t changed that much when it comes to knowing the inside of a kitchen, at least.”

“Taako.”  Lup thought her tone was remarkably calm considering the onslaught of emotions she was suddenly facing, mostly fear.  “Tell me what  _ the fuck _ happened to you.”

There was a frozen moment between them.  For just an instant, Taako seemed afraid, too.  Then he tilted his head slightly, smiling, a look of carefully-crafted confusion masking whatever else was there.  “Nothing?  You know, besides the sometimes-debilitating memory loss, that’s pretty fucked up.”  He gestured sheepishly towards the kitchen, and Lup wondered who he thought he was fooling - Taako didn’t do  _ sheepish _ .  “Guess a few things slipped through the cracks.”

She’d assumed the distance was another part of the memory thing, that Taako wasn’t used to her yet.  It sucked, and she hated the idea that she was ever a stranger to Taako.  She hated that Taako’s time alone had happened at all, that she hadn’t been there for him even in his own mind and that this mess was the result.  But she’d thought, whatever the problem was, she could fix it.  It would take time, it would take patience - which she wasn’t the best at, fair enough, but she was a hell of a lot better at it now - but she could help.

The problem was that Taako was keeping secrets from her, and she couldn’t help him with a problem she didn’t understand.  She  _ couldn’t help him _ , and it felt like she was in that damn umbrella all over again - Taako was hurt, Taako needed her, and she couldn’t do anything.

Lup wanted to scream; she took a deep breath instead, though she was sure she wasn’t hiding her annoyance well.  She couldn’t yell at Taako.  As much as she would really, really like to yell at her brother about being stupid and not trusting her, that strategy had never worked before.  “Taako, hon?  I haven’t been related to you for our  _ literal entire lives _ to fall for your bullshit.  And everything you just said to me was bullshit.  Do you maybe want to try that again?”

She was smiling but it was not a happy smile, and she could tell that Taako recognized it by the way his own fake expression faltered.  She could see him debating whether or not the ruse was worth a final attempt until his face fell into something more neutral.  “I don’t cook anymore.”

Lup waited for more, but that seemed to be all he was going to tell her.  “You… don’t cook.  Just like that.”

“Just like that.”  There were no hints in his tone, which sounded disinterested.  Almost disinterested.  There was a waver.

Did he think he couldn’t talk to her?  He hadn’t had any problems talking to her at length about every breakup so they could badmouth the newest asshole together for hours, or about every petty thievery, or about how family seemed nice, sure, but wouldn’t it be too much work to care that much about that many people?  She told him everything, almost; was that over now?  He had to know Lup wouldn’t let that happen if she could help it.

“Well,” she finally said.  “That’s a shame.  A hundred years of wasted effort, that must suck.”  He shrugged in a “what can you do” way.  “Actually, that reminds me of something.  I was talking to Lucretia the other day, and she was asking when we wanted our stuff.  I figured she just meant clothes, so of course I said hell yeah, first dibs, and I took all of the scarves.  All of them.  We can negotiate later.  Anyway, she hasn’t touched a thing on the Starblaster since the whole mindwipe shit and when I went to check it out, all of our recipes were right where we left them.  Not like Lucretia was going to do anything with those, you know?  I figured I’d surprise you with them the next time we did this, but since you’re clearly not into that kind of thing anymore...  you wouldn’t mind if I just kept yours, right?”

She smiled at him innocently.  Taako’s eyes were wide, and Lup knew he hadn’t expected that.  They hadn’t touched the cookbooks in ages, but they used to obsess over the recipes they collected.  Long hours had been spent in various kitchens of different worlds, and then hours more in the kitchen of the Starblaster as they replicated flavors and improved upon them.  Everything they knew about cooking was in those books, and while they usually shared what they uncovered, they both kept a few secrets.  Their tastes weren’t completely the same, and neither were the recipes. Besides that, both of them had recipes that only they could cook, and those recipes had been the source of a considerable amount of espionage on the Starblaster.  No one could claim innocence.

“What?”  He barked out a disbelieving laugh.  “You’re not keeping my recipes.  What do you even want with them?”

“I’d just hate for all of your work to go to waste.”  She tried to look guileless, but she was pretty sure Taako saw through it.  She expected him to.  “Besides, I’m betting Magnus will riot if he finds out he’s never getting your garlic bread again.”  She pretended to think for a moment.  “And I will  _ definitely _ riot if I never get another one of you macarons.”

Taako fucking  _ twitched _ , and Lup knew she had him.

“You’re not making my macarons.”

“Oh,  _ aren’t _ I?  I have all the info I need in my possession at this very moment.  I could whip that bad boy out right now and treat the whole moon base to some delicious cookies.”

“You  _ aren’t going to _ .”

“Watch me.”

They stared each other down for several long moments.  Neither of them moved.  It was a strange feeling, to make a gamble on the memory of someone whose memories were sometimes tenuous.

“You don’t make macarons.”

“I don’t make macarons,” Lup agreed.  “Do you remember why that is, Taako?  Do you remember what our deal was?”

It had been the first time she lost him.  He’d come back, but she’d been looking for some guarantee that it would never happen again, so she’d come up with some idiotic logic reasoning.  It hadn’t made any sense, but Taako went with it as if it was a perfectly reasonable suggestion, and the rest of the crew had followed his lead.

“I’m the only one who makes macarons, and because I’m the only one who does, I have to be around to make them.”

It hadn’t worked, obviously; the next time Taako died, there just weren’t any macarons.  The fact that he was the only one who could make them did nothing to save his life.  But the time after that, Lup found a little box of the cookies hidden in her room, and while it still didn’t really change anything, she felt a little less lost.

“Right.  And if you won’t make them, I will.  We’re not going to just… not have macarons.  That’s not going to happen.”

“Lup…”

“ _ I am not letting go of you _ .  If there’s something you can’t do anymore, I’ll help you.  If you want to talk about it I’ll listen, and if you don’t I’ll be here anyway.  Moral support, or a hug, or whatever.  But you don’t have to… pretend to be okay.  It’s okay to not be okay.  I just want to know if you’re not so I can…  _ try _ to help?”

There was a long silence, and Lup hated that she wasn’t sure what Taako’s response would be.  “Yeah, okay,” he finally said, and his smile was uncertain enough that she decided he needed a hug immediately.

~~~

Taako did not collapse into her arms in a dramatic fashion and tearfully confess to whatever it was that happened in her absence.  He did stay in the kitchen to watch her cook with a kind of close attention that confirmed for Lup that his interest was definitely not just gone.

He didn’t touch anything, though.  It was strange, to have him sitting right there and not right next to her, behind her, trying to reach something by reaching in front of her like an animal instead of just walking around her.  There was a lot of pushing and shoving in the way they cooked together, and even with him feet away from her, the kitchen felt too big and too quiet.

She didn’t mention that.  They talked about other things, like the way Leon still wouldn’t look Lup in the eye when they happened to pass each other.

And that was it, Lup assumed.  She’d wait until Taako decided whether or not he wanted to talk about it, but that was really all she could do short of threatening him or having Merle cast Zone of Truth.

She hadn’t expected Magnus to seek her out.  She was putting a few pots soaking - if Taako wasn’t going to cook then he was damn well on dish duty - when Magnus shuffled over sheepishly.  Lup gave him a skeptical look; he could say what he liked about rogue training, but the guilty look already on his face was not inspiringly sneaky.

He took a deep breath.  “So Lup, uh, about the cooking thing…”

“The ‘cooking thing’?  You got something to say about my food, Burnsides?”  If he was having some kind of glitch in his memories Lup would be more than happy to remind him of what happened the last time one of the crew decided they were a food critic.

“No!  No, it was delicious, and it’s been ages!  Please never leave again, I don’t think we’d survive.”  

His earnest pleas were very convincing, and Lup laughed.  “You definitely would not.  It’s okay, buddy, I got you.”  She patted him on the arm consolingly.

Magnus grinned at her for a moment, but it started to drop away as he remembered why he wanted to talk to her.  “I was actually asking, uh, how the whole cooking thing went with Taako.  Was… I mean, did he seem cool to you?  He didn’t get weird about anything we ate so…”

Lup frowned.  “He didn’t cook anything we ate.  He didn’t actually cook anything at all, he got kind of spacey?”  Magnus seemed… disappointed.  “Why?  Do you know something about this?”

“Fuck.  Not really?”  Magnus sat down on one of the barstools, leaning heavily on the counter.  “Taako didn’t want to talk about it, and fair enough, right?  I didn’t want to talk about Julia at first, Merle didn’t mention his kids for ages, sometimes it doesn’t help.  He’d cook at night sometimes, when it was late, and sometimes one of us would catch him at it because we were up too.  He always threw it out, we never asked.  But now… that’s not him.  That wasn’t him.  That’s… not who I remember, but also exactly who I remember.”  Magnus rested his face in his hands and groaned.  Lup dried off her hands and sat down next to him, patting him on the back.  Taako wasn’t the only one struggling with a dual memory.  “I just don’t know if I should have been doing something about it.”

Lup shrugged.  “Mags… this whole thing is fucked up.  I don’t think there are really any right answers.”

Magnus sighed.  Lup wasn’t sure if he was agreeing with her or not.

“What did you guys talk about when you were all up at the same time?”

“Normal stuff, I guess.  What we did that day, or something funny from a mission.  Once me and Taako spent the whole night getting Merle to give us an actual sermon.  He was drunk, it was hilarious.”

“Hey, Magnus?”  She waited until he looked at her, and then took his hand, smiling.  “Thank you for being there.”

The “when I wasn’t” was implied.

~~~

If she hadn’t expected the conversation with Magnus, she really hadn’t expected the one with Kravitz.  

It was date night and Taako was worrying way too much about his look.  Lup saw that reunion during the apocalypse and the way Kravitz looked at her brother every time since; Taako could have walked out in a burlap sack and Kravitz would be just as smitten as always.  It was no good telling Taako that, though - she’d tried, more than once.  At this point it had been five minutes since the last promise of “just five more minutes” so there was a pretty good chance Taako was nowhere near ready.  Kravitz lingered awkwardly in the living room, standing next to the couch as if he wasn’t sure he was allowed to be in the room - as if he wasn’t on the base practically every spare moment he had between jobs, and as if he wasn’t such a familiar face that people had started greeting him by name now.  Lup was staring just a bit from one end of the couch from over her book.  The goal was not intimidation, but Lup guessed that intimidation just came with the territory of the potential lich status.

“It’s not gonna be five minutes.  He was still in a towel when he poked his head out.”

Oh, and was that a blush?  That was absolutely a blush.  Smitten, just like she kept saying, as if the heartfelt confession had not been evidence enough of how head-over-heels this guy was.  “I, um, I figured.  I’m not in any hurry.”

“So you can… sit down or something, if you want to.  While you wait for Taako to get his shit together.”

“Right!  Right, I’ll just… yes.”  He sat down on the other end of the couch, and managed to look just as awkward sitting as he had standing.   

There was a long silence.  Kravitz was trying not to look at her and doing a really bad job of it.  Maybe they should’ve… put out some interesting books on the coffee table or something, give the poor guy something to look at instead of the wall.  “Eat many souls lately?”

“I… excuse me?”

“Your whole,” Lup gestured vaguely, “soul thing.  Your deal.  How’s that been working out for you?”

“Ah.  Pretty well?  The last assignment was a… a, ah, lich.”  The end of that sentence came out slightly strangled, and oh, right.  The lich thing.  Maybe work wasn’t the best topic.

“Cool!  Cool, cool.  Things have been… pretty chill around here.  Magnus ate a whole chicken.  Practically inhaled the thing.”  Lup thought she’d remembered Magnus’s monstrous appetite with some measure of accuracy, but there was a difference seeing it first-hand again.  It seemed like a noteworthy topic of conversation.

Kravitz was looking at her with something akin to true horror.  “He… sweet goddess.  Please tell me it wasn’t… still alive.”  If Kravitz had still been alive, he might’ve been turning green.  As it was, it seemed like his skin was getting a little transparent.

Also,  _ what the fuck _ .  “Yeah, it was pretty thoroughly dead.  Cooked, too, because we’re not  _ complete animals _ .”

“Oh.  It’s just.  When I met Magnus, um, in the lab he… ate a rock.  I wasn’t sure if maybe this was an ongoing… thing.  With him.”

“He… ate a rock.”

“I know how it sounds but I promise you --”

“ _ Taako!  Magnus ate a rock? _ ”  Kravitz hadn’t been expecting the sudden volume and jumped.

Taako’s head poked out of the door again.  At least he had pants on this time.  “Did we not tell you that one yet?  Not a rock,  _ the _ rock!  The fucking Philosopher’s Stone!  Just swallowed it whole in the middle of a fight!  I don’t know how Lucretia kept a straight face when we got back to the base and had to start discussing  _ extraction methods _ .”

“Holy shit.”  Oh man.  Lup had a few ideas about some very good pranks she could pull with rock candy now that she had this information.

“I can’t believe those three survived the apocalypse.”  It had come out in an awed whisper, but Lup heard it anyway and sniggered.

“A little bit of a miracle for all of us, given our track record.”

“Well…  _ you _ said it,” Kravitz added, and Lup laughed delightedly.

There was more silence.  Kravitz shifted uncomfortably, and they were right back where they started.  Fuck this shit.

“Hey Kravitz, I know we don’t know each other well yet but you can relax a little.  This isn’t some kind of test.  We’re just sitting in the same room.”  And she wouldn’t have called him out for it had this not been only the last in a long line of this awkwardness cropping up when they were in the same room together.  “...this isn’t still the lich thing, is it?”  She thought they had an understanding about that, but maybe the potential lich status really was a factor.

“No!  That’s not it, it’s just… oh goddess.”  He put his head in his hands.

Lup lifted an eyebrow.  “That bad, huh?”

“It’s… embarrassing.  You’re going to laugh at me.  Taako has already laughed at me.”  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes as though not being able to see her laugh would somehow improve the experience.  “You’re  _ Lup _ .”

“ _ Oh. _ ”  The celebrity thing, then.  Lup appreciated the adoration, but the fame took some getting used to.

“It’s not that either!  It’s just… well, you’re Taako’s twin sister.  You’re such a big part of his life and you’re so important to him, and I wanted to leave a good impression.  Which I have not been doing, clearly.”  He leaned back against the couch.

“Oh.”  He wanted to impress the family.  Somehow that possibility hadn’t occurred to her.

He still wasn’t quite looking at her.  “He’s been so much happier with you back.  I can see it in his face, his smiles are bigger now and that’s… well I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how good it is to see him like that.  And he talks about you all the time - we exchanged some stories about our histories before but now he actually enjoys telling me all about the trouble you two would get into.”  He sighed.  “Is it… is it weird to say thank you?”

“Depends on what you’re thanking me for, I guess?”

“Just… being here, now.  I worried about him, and now I worry less.  Things seem better for him, in general.”

Things  _ were _ better.  Ongoing distance aside, things were pretty good.  “You don’t have to thank me for that.  I would have been back a long time ago if I’d had any say in it.”  

Kravitz looked over to her; he was smiling, and it seemed much more comfortable this time.  “I know, and I’m grateful for that, too.  That Taako grew up with someone who cared about him instead of alone.  He seems more like himself, which is a strange thing to say when I didn’t know him then, but… he seems to know who he is, now.  At least, that was how he put once when we talked about it.”

He mentioned Taako’s recovering identity with an even tone, as though that didn’t still hurt to hear.  Part of her knew that was how it must have felt to have so much of his life wiped away, but it was different to know for sure.

The door to Taako’s room swung open and he strutted out in a way that was simultaneously hilarious and had Kravitz (ineffectively) scrambling to stand up.  “Ready to get out of here, handsome?”

“Handsome” somehow managed to get to his feet and circle around to the back of the couch without falling on his face.  “You look… really nice, Taako.”  The words were unquestionably sincere.  Lup could see the hearts in his eyes all the way from her spot on the couch.

Taako looked good.  He looked happy; he looked like himself.  The changes had been subtle, but she realized they’d been adding up over time.

“Well if I’m going to be on the arm of a good looking fella like you all night I should hope so.”  He was going to shed glitter on everything with that shirt, and Lup was certain that he knew it.  Part of the appeal, almost certainly.  He looked over to Lup.  “We’re going to that restaurant you like in Neverwinter, want me to bring back dessert?”

Lup shot him finger guns and he sniggered.  “Absolutely, my favorite brother ever.  You know what I like.”

As soon as the door closed behind them, Barry poked his head into the room.  “They’re gone?  I thought I heard the door.”

Lup rolled her eyes and patted the couch next to her.  “Yep, all clear you coward.  You’re worse than Kravitz.  We have an  _ agreement _ .”

“Well yeah,” Barry conceded, also sitting on the opposite end of the couch and taking up the middle with his legs.  Lup immediately swung around to put her legs on top of his.  “But he’s got that, that… scythe thing.  You can’t not look intimidating lugging that around.”

“It’s date night, he didn’t bring the scythe.  What, are you saying you wouldn’t have sprung into action to save my mortal life if he’d started swinging?”

“Lup, dearest, love of my life, we both know which one of us would be doing the rescuing.”  Lup laughed.

In the comfortably domestic atmosphere, Lup considered the different ways of being alone.  There had been her way, trapped and without help, missing the people she cared about and unable to reach them or even to know if they were looking for her.  And there had been Taako’s way, unaware of what he was missing but apparently aware that something beyond his understanding was wrong.

Lup had tried to imagine it before.  What kind of life would she have lived if it had just been her from the beginning?  Who would she be if she hadn’t had her brother?  She didn’t have a solid answer aside from vague and nauseating feelings of loneliness - their life had been hard sometimes, but they’d been able to count on each other.  She remembered when Taako got a terrifyingly intense fever once, and she’d guided a barely-there version of her brother through the market to someone who could help them.  Then there was the time she’d been inconsolable after accidentally damaging most of a caravan’s wagons and causing an amount of collateral damage that she hadn’t had the strength to even think about at the time.  She didn’t remember much about the following week, just vague impressions of Taako coaxing her to eat and to walk, telling jokes and doing silly dances until he finally drew a smile and then a strangled giggle.

Who would she  _ be _ without Taako?  She didn’t know.  She didn’t have to wonder.

Taako knew who he was without her, but did that matter?  He had those missing pieces back, his memories along with the identity those memories gave him; he knew who he was now.  Maybe she couldn’t fix whatever else had gone wrong in his life, but she was here.  Things were getting better.  They were together again, and that wasn’t meaningless.

~~~

Taako was cooking.  He was cooking… slowly, double checking his ingredients and his steps as though maybe something about them had changed while his back was turned, but he was absolutely cooking.  At three in the morning, almost in the dark as though he was hiding a secret.

Lup was standing just outside the doorway, not sure if she should let him know she’d seen him.  It was good that he was cooking, but she didn’t understand the logic of the timing or the secrecy and she didn’t want to ruin whatever was happening here by exposing the fact that she knew about it.  But she didn’t want to ignore this, either.  

She didn’t want to go back to bed.

Everyone in Faerun had nightmares now.  Lup’s usually included black curtains and the feeling that she was fading away, out of sight and out of memory.  She was alone, and no one was coming for her because no one knew that she was gone.  Everyone had forgotten her, and then she forgot herself.  Barry and Taako both had plenty of experience already with calmly telling her what her name was, where she was, and how she had gotten there when she woke up from those dreams, frantic and confused.

Tonight had been different.  She was a kid again, learning to cook and set things on fire, traveling in caravans and earning her keep and robbing people blind by equal turns.  Everywhere she went, everything she did, there was the creeping sense that something was wrong.  She couldn’t place it, and she tried to ignore it, but it irritated her like a mosquito buzzing around her head and always just out of sight.  She couldn’t stop herself from looking next to her every so often as though she was going to see something there.  It was a useless habit, because nothing ever was.  The more she looked, though, the more she was tempted to look again and the more a faint buzz of static grew, until it was overpowering and taking over her vision and if she looked hard enough she thought she could make out a  _ shape _ …

Lup woke up, and it took her a full minute of confused, half-awake contemplation to realize that the unsettled feeling was because Taako wasn’t there.  And because she could, because he was that close and in the same living area and obviously just a short walk down the hall, she’d gone to his room to reassure herself that it was just a dream.  A stupid, shitty, bad dream that took advantage of a whole new worry and was an asshole move for her brain to pull, but it was just a dream because Taako was in his room, asleep.  Except when she opened the door and peeked in, she found his bed empty.

There was no pause to consider what her next step would be - robe, pajamas, and all, she immediately set out for the front door, determined to find her brother wherever he was on the moonbase.  Because he was absolutely somewhere on the moonbase, because he definitely hadn’t just vanished off the face of the earth as a result of one stupid dream, and she was going to find him and ask him, very nicely, what the fuck he thought he was doing wandering around at three in the goddamn morning and giving her a heart attack.

She’d only just registered the sound of pots being shifted in time to stop herself before she went barging through the kitchen.  There was Taako, cooking, and Lup was left in the uncertain state of not knowing what to do.

She wanted to be closer, give him a hug, something to confirm that he was actually there.  Physical contact and attention had only become more important to her after the Umbrastaff, and she could already feel a bad day looming over her from the dream.  Comfort wasn’t going to stop that from happening, but it would be nice.  It would be really goddamn nice, but what would be really goddamn shitty was if she ruined what was happening here because she had to ask for a hug.

“If you want to sneak up on a guy you’ve really got to commit.  You can’t just stomp around and then decide to go into stealth mode at the last minute.”  Taako was looking in the direction of the doorway, a smile on his face that seemed weak but sincere.

Lup ambled out like she’d meant to do that the entire time.  “Yeah, big fucking talk from the guy who’s being sneaky in the kitchen in the middle of the night by rattling pans.  Thanks for the wake up call, you jerk.”  She sat at the counter on one of the barstools and waved at him to indicate that he should keep doing what he was doing.

Slowly, hesitantly, Taako picked up the mixing bowl again.  “Fuck you, that’s not what woke you up.”

“Oh?  You seem really certain about that.”  She rested her head on one hand, elbow leaning on the counter.  The adrenaline was draining out of her, and she was starting to register that, yes, it was in fact three in the morning and she was exhausted.

Taako just kept mixing, staring at the recipe that was propped up against a sack of sugar.

“So.  What’s on the menu that’s so fantastic that it couldn’t wait until dawn?”

“Macarons.”

That woke her up a little and she lifted her head, bouncing a little in place.  “Hell  _ yes _ , I need my macaron fix.  I call dibs on the entire first batch because I’m your favorite sister and you love me.  What are my chances of talking you into making the chocolate kind?”

He chuckled.  “Not very good, Magnus cleaned us out.”

“Even the baking chocolate?”

He quirked an eyebrow.  “Never seen someone gnaw a solid block of chocolate like that before, but he managed.  He said something about being deprived, and I told him he’d stay deprived for at least a month after that stunt.  And now that I think about it, if Magnus starts whining to you about chocolate chip cookies…”

“I’ll ask him what happened to all of our chocolate chips.”

“Knew you’d have my back,” he said, smiling.

The two of them were quiet.  Lup tried not to fall asleep where she sat; the sound of Taako working in the kitchen was something right out of the better parts of her childhood, and it was hard not to be put at ease by something so familiar.  She didn’t think she slept, but she lost track of a few minutes; when she blinked into actual consciousness again, Taako was looking at her.  He looked conflicted; after a moment, his focus shifted to the batter.

“Something wrong?”

Taako’s face twisted, an unhappy smile doing strange things to his expression.  Any lingering exhaustion vanished as Lup took in the change.  

And then he started laughing.  The first laugh, loud and abrupt, seemed to surprise him as much as it surprised Lup, and he couldn’t seem to stop himself after that.  The sound forced its way out of him, something unnatural and unwanted.  “What am I doing?  Why am I  _ cooking _ for people?  Who the fuck do I think I am?”  He was shaking, and just as suddenly he wasn’t laughing anymore.

Lup was around the counter before she’d decided what she was going to do.  She still didn’t know when Taako abruptly tipped the contents of the bowl into the garbage.

She looked for the right thing to say, and realized she didn’t know what the right thing was.

Taako broke the silence.  “I know, you called dibs, but I couldn’t let you eat that."

“Why not?”

He didn’t seem to hear the question, or he was ignoring it.  “You said something about making the macarons and I’ve been thinking, maybe that’s a good idea?  Maybe that’s how it should be, after… after everything.  You wouldn’t have to wait for me to get my shit together and stop messing up the batch.”  He ran a hand through his bangs, unaware or just not caring about the mess he was making; it was a nervous tic he’d had almost forever.  His hands were still shaking.  He wasn’t looking at her.

“Taako, what are we really talking about right now?”  There was something else under what he was saying; she hadn’t wanted to push, but now she worried she hadn’t pushed enough.  Lup took Taako’s hand, suddenly worried that he was drifting off somewhere she couldn’t reach.  She was reminded of the way she’d felt during her dream, and she wasn’t going to let that happen.  Taako was next to her, where she could see him and touch him.  She needed him  _ here _ .

“And goofs aside, Magnus is like, ten years overdue for some cookies, so maybe that should be priority number one if you’re okay on waiting for the macarons a little longer.  You should definitely make him go planetside to buy the chocolate chips, though.  He wouldn’t even complain.  The big guy can consume an irresponsible amount of cookies.”

“This isn’t about cooking.  I know it isn’t.”

Lup felt Taako’s hand trembling in her grasp.  “Angus… I might have told him, um, something about cooking lessons.  And even if he’s disappointed you’d make a kickass teacher if you’re cool with teaching the littlest nerd.  Let’s be real, the magic lessons are enough, I didn’t need the headache of keeping Ango from catching himself on fire…”

Letting go of his hand for just a moment, Lup took Taako’s face gently between her hands.  “Taako,  _ talk to me _ .”  He looked at her and she could see how many thoughts were running through his head, but he didn’t say anything.  She took a deep breath and braced herself for an answer she didn’t want to hear.  “If this is… a trust thing, because I wasn’t there when you needed me, I swear that’s not ever going to happen again --”

Taako sighed.  “That’s not it.”  He took her hands from his face, but he held onto one.

_ “Don’t let go.  If you let go of my hand you might get lost.”   _ She couldn’t remember who said that to them when they were small, only that it was true.  It always had been.

“When I met Magnus - when I met Magnus  _ again _ , he was that guy, you know?  Rescue a kitten out of a tree, group hugs, all of that.  And maybe he was a little different, but he was still… he was still him.  He was still a good person.”

Lup squeezed Taako’s hand.

“At the beginning, I kept thinking, holy shit, this guy is for real!  He’s actually just  _ like _ that!  And that was wild, because I wasn’t used to people being like that - caring about other people and telling them they cared all the time, laying all the cards right out on the table like some kind of idiot and having it somehow work out anyway.  And I thought, if this guy actually knew me, if he knew the first thing about me, he wouldn’t care so much.  That kind of guy is exactly the kind of person who would hate someone like me.”

Taako’s other hand slid through his bangs again.  His eyes darted around the kitchen and he shifted uneasily.  He looked like someone who was ready to run, but he didn’t let go of her hand.

“I’m not a good person, Lup.  If I ever was, I’m not anymore.  I wouldn’t have been a good person without you.”

Lup smiled at him.  “Come on, dingus, you know that I know you better than that.”

Taako wasn’t smiling.  Taako’s mouth was twisting around like he couldn’t decide what to do with the words that were trapped there, and he was giving her that look again - the one that said he was sure that he hadn’t already lost her.

He finally managed to say what he’d been keeping from her, in a hoarse whisper.  “Lup, I killed forty people.”

Foregoing the barstools entirely, Lup guided Taako to the couch.  She sat him down right next to her and rubbed his back while big, ugly sobs burst out of him in a horrible parody of the laughter just a few minutes before.  She wondered if he’d had the chance to cry about this before now.  She didn’t think so.

When he couldn’t cry anymore, she pulled him to lean his head against her shoulder, and from there he told her one of the stories she hadn’t heard yet, about a cooking show and a man named Sazed who seemed nice but always wanted more.  There were audiences and interesting dishes, but mostly there was one audience and one dish.  

If this story had been one of the fairy tales they liked so much, Sazed would already be dead or cursed and his crimes the only part of him that people remembered.  Taako would be able to cook without this lasting certainty that he would hurt someone, and he and Lup would be in the kitchen right now, probably covered in more batter than what made it into the oven.  But happy endings weren’t as simple as the stories made them out to be.

Lup bit back her anger - she would save that for later, for an opportunity she was certain she could arrange - in favor of holding onto her brother.  When his breathing had evened out a little more, she spoke up.  “I don’t know how to break this to you, bro, but that’s not what murder is.”

He let out a small, hiccuping laugh that she felt more than heard.  “Does it matter?”

“Uh, yeah, it matters a whole fucking lot.  You’re not a murderer, Taako.”  She brushed the hair back from his face and he smiled a little at the familiar gesture.

“I didn’t stick around to save them.  You would have.”

“Yeah, and gotten into serious trouble for my effort.  If you’d been there with me you would have dragged me away because you would have known that I couldn’t help them.  You’re practical, Taako, that doesn’t make you a bad person.”  Taako didn’t answer, choosing to settle in more comfortably next to her.  That was okay - she had plenty of time to convince him.  Not tonight, maybe, but she would make him believe it.  “When you were telling me all of that stuff about Magnus… you weren’t just talking about Magnus, were you?”

Taako didn’t answer that either.  He didn’t have to; she knew him well enough to know what he was trying to say.

Lup held him a little tighter.  “I’m here, now.  I’m not going anywhere.  You’d have to do a lot better than that to get rid of me.”  She could just make out the sound of a weak chuckle.

They were almost asleep when Lup thought of something else.

“ _ Fuck. _ ”

“Hm?”  Taako didn’t bother to pick up his head.

“You could’ve  _ died _ .”  Taako didn’t react.  “You would have been… you would have just been gone.  I would have gotten out of that umbrella and I wouldn’t have even known where to look.  I didn’t even tell you goodbye when I left.  I didn’t tell you goodbye and I never would have.”

Taako sighed and snuggled closer.  “Still here, Lulu.  I’m still here.  I’m not going anywhere either.”  Lup sighed and tried to let the thought go.  That hadn’t happened.  She hadn’t lost him.

They were together, and that was what mattered.  

~~~

_ Taako wasn’t in bed when Lup was jolted awake as the caravan wagon ran over a hole.  She wasn’t too worried; Taako didn’t always sleep well, and he probably hadn’t gone all that far.  There weren’t many places to go on a moving wagon, and they weren’t going to stop until morning. _

_ It only took a few minutes of looking to find him at the back of the wagon, on the other side of the flaps which were tied shut.  She slipped outside and sat on the narrow edge next to him, grabbing his hand before he fell asleep and fell off.  He was already drowsy, leaning against one side of the wagon.  “Hey goofus,” he muttered. _

_ “Hey dingus.  You’re gonna get left behind one day if you keep sitting on the back of the wagon when you can’t sleep.” _

_ He smiled a sleepy smile in her direction.  “You’d look for me, though.” _

_ “Uh huh, and I’d punch you in the face for making me worry when I found you.” _

_ He laughed, then sighed.  “Tell me a story?” _

_ “I told you one last time, it’s your turn.” _

_ “Luluuu,” he whined, and she rolled her eyes. _

_ “Fine, whatever.  Which one do you want?”  She scooted closer, and he leaned against her instead. _

_ “Make one up?”  She knew he couldn’t see her face well in the dark, but he would know the look she was giving him anyway.  It was something close to exasperation.  “Please?  You come up with the best endings.” _

_ And because Lup couldn’t argue with that logic, she gave in.  “Once, not very far away, there was a brother and sister…” _

~~~

Their next bad days clashed.  Taako wouldn’t leave his room, and Lup hung around the door, trying to get as close as possible.  She held out for two hours before slipping inside and crawling into bed next to him.  She wouldn’t bother him, she reasoned, she just needed to be able to see him.

Taako wasn’t asleep, and once she was settled under the covers, she looked over to see him staring at her.  Lup waited, tense for whatever kind of reaction he would have - the last time he’d tried to leave the room when he was like this, coaxed gently from the bed, he’d been overwhelmed as soon as he saw the faces of his friends outside.  There was no reaction now, though, only a slow blink and a vague sort of confusion.

“I know you.”  It wasn’t a question.

“Better than almost anyone, yeah.”

Lup could see his eyes twitch back and forth, taking in her face.  Barry tried to explain to her once how he’d forgotten her face while looking directly at her twin, the inability to connect those specific features to another person, the sudden loss of the small tells that differentiated the siblings.  She imagined that something similar was happening in Taako’s head at that moment.  “Are you real?”

“As real as you.”  She didn’t feel very real at that moment, her own head filled with black curtains and a floating feeling.

He didn’t seem convinced.  “I can’t remember.  Too much going on up there.”  He motioned listlessly at his temple.

She sighed and nodded.  “It’s a bad day.  Bad day for me, too.”

“Fucking annoying is what it is,” Taako muttered, before frowning and turning to her.  “What’s wrong?”

What was wrong was that Lup felt far away from everyone, not real and not really here.  She felt invisible, silent, ghostly.  Practically dead, practically out of reach.  At the center of it… “I don’t want to be alone.”

“Being alone sucks,” he agreed.  “Will you stay?”

Lup reached out and brushed a lock of hair out of his face.  She wasn’t sure if that was allowed, when he couldn’t remember her, but the contact made her feel better for a moment.  “‘Course I will.”

Taako smiled, and while the expression was still vague, it seemed genuine.  “Good.”

They were both quiet for a long time.  Lup wasn’t sure how much time passed, but she was pretty sure she’d fallen asleep a couple of times.  The sun was in a different position by the time Taako spoke again.  “This is gonna sound weird, but I like you.”

“Oh yeah?”  She bit back a yawn; Taako didn’t look much more awake than her, so he must have slept at some point, too.

“Yeah.  You look just like you could be my sister.”  He laughed a little.  “Weird, right?  It’s just, when I was little I always wanted a sister.  Like, a weird amount?  I didn’t even have parents, but I thought having a sister would make things better.”

Lup looked at him a little more closely.  His expression was still vague.  “No sister, then?”

“No.  No offense but I’m still not sold that you’re real - kinda weird that you’d show up and look… right.  Don’t really trust my head not to pull some shit like that right now.”

Taako couldn’t remember her, but some part of her was still in there.  Maybe it had been there all along, even when he was alone.  It was comforting, to know that she could still reach him even like this.  And she was encouraged to push a little further.

“And if it turned out that I was real after all, do you still want a sister?”

“I guess.”  His suspicious look was wonderfully familiar.  “And you’re… volunteering?  Can I ask why?”

Lup scooted a little closer.  “I like you, too.  And you look like you could be my brother.  One condition, though.”

“Yeah?”

She wasn’t sure this was allowed, either, but fuck it.   _ Fuck it _ , it didn’t hurt to try.  If he knew she needed something from him, he’d want her to ask.  She would trust him to answer her honestly.  “Yeah.  Cuddles-on-demand, starting right now.  And if I’m still here when you wake up, I’ll be your sister.  Deal?”

Smiling a wry, disbelieving smile, Taako held his arms open.  “Deal.”

Something tense in the air seemed to relax as Lup scooted into his embrace and threw her own arms around him.  This was familiar; even a little broken, this was them, what they did when they couldn’t stand the thought of being alone.  That feeling of not being real faded; having him in sight hadn’t been enough.  And even if Taako couldn’t really remember right now, she knew that something about this was familiar to him; she could feel some of the tension drain out of him while they both fell asleep again.

They didn’t wake up until the next morning, and Lup woke up to Taako giggling, his eyes clear.  When she gave him a sleepy, annoyed glare because it was  _ so early _ , the sun was barely up and frankly how dare he, he grinned.  “You’re still here.”

“Yep and also your sister by contractual obligation, and as such I demand that you  _ go the fuck back to sleep _ .”  Taako giggled, but to Lup’s satisfaction they ended up sleeping in till noon.

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone left Taako alone on his bad days because seeing too many people was overwhelming; after Lup's visit, they take turns spending the day with him. He hates being alone, after all. (And even if he doesn't say anything, he appreciates the company.)


End file.
